The European Commission wants to let new members in. It also wants a way to make them behave once they are inside.
On Tuesday, Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos presented the Commission's Communication "Preparing for a Wider Union" in Strasbourg. It is the Commission's attempt to answer the question that has stalled enlargement debates for years: how do you add members without repeating the fights the EU had with Hungary and Poland over judicial and media independence?
According to the Commission's presentation, the package has three parts. The first is safeguards. The Commission wants to be able to cut financial support or suspend voting rights when a member backslides on democracy, with stronger follow-up under Article 7, the EU's existing rule-of-law procedure. For newcomers, it adds temporary instruments that would apply for 15 years. Kos described the safeguards as an "insurance policy" for current members.
The second is institutional. The Commission proposes moving from unanimity to qualified majority voting in areas such as sanctions, tax fraud and energy taxation, and making more use of "constructive abstention", which lets a country sit out a foreign-policy decision without blocking it. New members would be invited to pledge not to use their vetoes in future enlargement disputes. Earlier reports had suggested newcomers might have to waive vetoes altogether for an initial period.
The third is "gradual integration". Candidates that deliver reforms would get early, reversible access to selected EU policies, from energy and transport to AI, security and defence. Ukraine's large farm sector would get special transitional arrangements.
Kos insisted the plan does not create second-class members. "We do not want a two-tier membership," she said.
The politics behind the package are as important as the text. The Commission has been burned by the years it spent fighting Budapest and Warsaw, and several capitals need arguments for sceptical voters. Every enlargement needs approval from all 27 national parliaments. In France, that could mean a referendum, unless three-fifths of both chambers of parliament agree to skip one. "With the rise of the National Rally we need arguments," one diplomat said.
France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium have argued for the strictest measures so governments can sell enlargement at home. Italy and Austria, which put the Western Balkans first, are not convinced. Steven Blockmans, an enlargement expert, said the safeguards are "politically a non-starter for substantial groups of member states".
Candidates are wary too. Moldova's prime minister, Vasile Tofan, warned in Brussels on Monday against "any perception of tiered, or second-tier" membership, which he said Russia would exploit. Tofan says his government already has reforms in place that would let it close seven to ten of the 33 negotiating chapters, and has drawn up a project plan to finish all of them in early 2028. He expects a good assessment in the Commission's annual progress report at the end of October.
Montenegro, the furthest ahead, could finish negotiations around the turn of the year, according to the Commission's timeline, with an accession treaty in 2027.
The Commission is trying to buy support for enlargement from the countries that fear it, and the price is a tougher deal for the countries that want it. That is a hard trade to land. If the safeguards are too strong, candidates will say they are being offered a lesser membership. If they are too weak, France, Germany and the Netherlands will struggle to win parliamentary votes.
Expect the real negotiation to start now. Leaders will take up the package in the coming weeks, and the same countries that applaud it in public will fight over which vetoes go and which stay. Frontrunners like Moldova and Montenegro have the most to gain from a clear path, and the most to lose if the safeguards turn into a new set of hurdles.
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